Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I hope he will be here.

This country is experiencing the greatest financial crisis the western world has seen in the past 80 years. Over the two years of the crisis, the Government would have had us believe that Ireland was somehow a victim of circumstances outside its control - that the collapse of Lehman Brothers resulted in a series of events that caused our otherwise healthy economy to implode, and that somehow the Government was a blameless victim of circumstances. The public, however, are not fools, and the realisation dawned that despite the spin, this was not altogether true. They realised there had been reckless management of the economy, both on the fiscal front and as far as oversight of monetary policy was concerned. Now, however, we know for sure, because the Government's own experts have confirmed its reckless behaviour. Its cover has been blown.

The Government's own two banking reports clearly show that the financial crisis was largely a common or garden, vanilla-flavoured, home-grown problem, and that our banks and national financial system were so inappropriately overheated that they would have collapsed anyway, even if the collapse of Lehman Brothers had never occurred. I do not deny that the banks are to blame. In addition, there was a lack of regulation, and the Financial Regulator must also bear much of the responsibility. However, the Government's mismanagement of the economy is clearly demonstrated in these shocking reports. It is to blame for what it did and for what it failed to do.

The Taoiseach has graciously accepted that he made some mistakes, but what he has not actually grasped is that these were monumental mistakes which have had catastrophic consequences for hundreds of thousands of people - consequences which will continue for a generation. Young people who have got into negative equity will carry this debt through their entire productive working lives. They and their families will pay for the mistakes for which the Taoiseach today said he took full responsibility. He cannot seriously expect people to move on as if it were time for the next item of business. This will not be accepted.

Almost everything the Government has told us since 2007 has been disproved. It told us the banks were secure and sound, but within days we were told we had to rescue them. The Government then told us that NAMA was the solution, and the discount on the NAMA loans would be of the order of 28%; we now know the discount was around 58%. It told us the impaired loans at Anglo Irish Bank had a value of about €800,000; within weeks, we were told they had a value of €22 billion.

Even now, the Government is telling us the economy is at a turning point. In fact, it has been telling us that for 12 months. However, a total of 430,000 people are unemployed, and that number is growing. We have the greatest asset deflation of any country. Our pensions have disappeared and share values have dropped completely. Businesses are closing and savings have disappeared. Young home-owners will be carrying the ball and chain of negative equity debt for probably the next 20 years. Only extreme arrogance could make the Government think it was right, and only extreme arrogance could allow it to think that people will believe it is right or accept its leadership. It has quite simply used up all its credit with the public. It now owes it to them to accept that and resign.

Not only should the Taoiseach resign, but the party should also resign from Government, because its members are all tainted with this. They cannot deny the fuelling of the property bubble and the creation of long-term spending streams from what could only be regarded as short-term taxes. They ignored concerns about tax incentives and benchmarking, and they solved every single problem by throwing money at it. Every vested interest was satisfied and everything was done to avoid rocking the boat. The Government allowed export growth and competitiveness to collapse as it spent and spent.

Having overspent, it now tells us - in fact, it is its mantra - that the whole world is lost in admiration of the Government's spending cuts. Unfortunately, the markets do not believe it. In fact, they are completely unimpressed, because almost every week the Government's spending cuts, painful as they are for people, are more than dwarfed by the debts they are incurring to further bail out the banks. In particular, the continued provision of money to Anglo Irish Bank is throwing good money after bad. The decision to bail out the bank was a bad one to begin with, but the Government is compounding it by continuing to do so while refusing to accept it was wrong. It was wrong, and the people are paying and paying as a result.

The time has come for the Taoiseach to show that he has some humility and shame. He must recognise that it is time to go and let somebody else get on with the job, because he will not accept that he was wrong from day one.

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